Page 94: the Private Eye Podcast

Hello welcome to another episode of Page 94.

My Andrew Hunter Murray and I'm here in the I studio with

Helen Lewis, adam McQueen Ian Hislop.

We are here on quite

a fast

moving news day.

So

this is just to

say that at

time of recording Kirstan was

Prime Minister and Peter

Mandelson hasn't been brought back in again for another

job.

I've

up

with a new principle, of, political life.

the

thing of the Peter

principle everyone is employed

one degree more than they should be.

This is the

Peter

principle where

you come back one

time after you really should be.

One

time too many.

One time too many.

Yeah.

I would say

three

is

three times many.

Yeah.

I suppose we're gonna start off with

how this whole

thing unfolded in the first

place.

were

any signs

possibly that making Peter

mad

ambassador

to the USA was a bad decision?

Yes.

The two previous resignations for basically exactly the same sort of thing,

which is having slightly suspicious relationships with wealthy people.

It's

how much

due diligence you

actually need to do.

'cause

you can pretty much guarantee that

if you he's man on the job, he's gonna be in with some dodgy, very rich person.

He's not gonna declare that to the people he

should have been.

gonna open up some

sort of back channel to do some kind of dodgy favor

for them, and he's

gonna have to resign pretty quickly and make everyone look stupid.

it's not, hard

to work out, is it?

I'm not saying that I was underwhelmed by the scandal, but there has been

a lot of that this is the greatest scandal since the perfumer affair.

It's the scandal of the century, whatever.

And I, kept running into.

my, but This is what Peter Mandelson does filter.

Yeah.

And I also wonder whether or not for people who aren't so tuned into

the Westminster bubble and the soap opera aspect of it, the way that it's

affected now, KISS Summers now former Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney.

This was just a kind of like more sort of SNAs in the trough

I I,

it on a par with maybe MP's expenses perhaps as the most similar scandal of

the kind, which is I think it would've validated a lot of people's prejudice

about the kind of thing that they thought politicians were all up to anyway.

I know there's an element

it, which is very much scorpion

stings, frog shock.

But there is also

an element where we

promised all of boring process.

We were promised a that treads

likely on everyone's lives.

And

appear to have

that.

I still cannot believe anybody's surprise.

I've made a point about the cover about, Beatrice and Eugenie being.

Sold off to, Epstein, which we made a long time ago.

But when he went on that yacht with Osborne and De Paska,

private, I ran a cover and we put in as many puns as we could.

At the time, I feel sleaze sick every Mandy for himself, bankers away, corfu

or a stink.

it's not as

though,

whenever Mandy did anything involving rich people, no one noticed.

How

can he have gone through?

And

this is,

that scandal's not mentioned in the top three, which are all,

we

have to resign over

one.

It was

one of

the rarities, wasn't it?

And,

and you asked yourself why not?

But it did happen,

and everybody knew.

Everybody in politics knew what happens when you appoint Mandy and they

did it anyway.

not to, I know this is my area of specialist interest and or personal

psychological scarring, but the Labour psychodrama of this is quite

worth, revisiting because essentially the series of events is, this.

Kirstan is elected In 2015, having been a very successful human rights lawyer.

But fundamentally fairly apolitical.

And he moves his way through the Labour ranks by essentially

attaching himself to Brexit, which he was shadow Brexit secretary.

And that's a really useful place to be in with the membership because they

were fervently, far more pro-European than Jeremy Corbin, at the same time

that they absolutely loved Jeremy Corbin and were very resistant to

people from the center and the right of the party having a go at Corbin.

But this was the one issue actually, that Corbin was not

as one with the membership on.

So when you get to that leadership election in 2020, I went to see Ki

Amadou Hustings, and you would not have thought you could really put a

cigarette paper between him and Corbin.

That's the way he presented it.

He thought Corbin had been a bit soft on antisemitism that come up on the

doorsteps, and he actually wished that he'd been more, repellent of

Brexit, both of which were okay with the membership, but he did not present

himself as this radical departure.

But what then subsequently happened is through Morgan McSweeney

He

brought in this entire agenda.

That was the one in which they won such a big majority last year,

which was essentially appealing to white working class voters.

People who might have been Labour to reform

switches,

hero voters, they called them whatever it was.

But in order to kind of staff that when the gravity of the party was

still somewhere in the Corbin to Ed Milliband Soft left zone, they ended

up bringing in a lot of blairites.

And I think this is one of the things we, as we're recording this, Tim Allen

has just gone from down Street as executive Director of Communications.

He was only brought back in September, a Blair veteran.

We've talked before, you've mentioned Alan Milburn brought in to do health,

a Blairite veteran, Max, Jonathan Powell and National Security.

Yeah.

and

this other person who I think will maybe is a landmine for the future,

Matthew Doyle, who was a comms person in the Blair era, brought back to do

comms for Kier, has just been ennoble by him and is facing questions about

whether why he kept supporting a

guy who had been charged with looking at child sexual abuse material and then

ran against Labour as an independent.

And the common, this

not

Epstein, this

is,

This is another pedophile just to keep tracking if you're playing at home.

but the, one of these issues is the fact that they essentially, thema, what is

the Stara project they just bought in Blairism as a way of staffing up roles.

'cause they're just and a long time in opposition, lost

all their institution memory.

So you're getting a kind of, I guess for you two who were in a

private eye through the Blair areas.

This is a sort of bizarre deja vu,

right?

It's all happening again.

Yeah.

Roger Little suddenly

we're

talking about, again,

him,

he was

the one that was hosting these Sunday night dos with, Mandelson and various

other people.

he's a yet another name that was knocking around when I first started at the

magazine.

It is extraordinary.

I, cannot believe there's nobody else alive in Britain who couldn't do the

job better than people who worked for Blair in a very previous government.

Why why would you let Mandelson vet candidates.

Of all people.

Why would you let Mandelson do anything?

It's still utterly beyond me.

But yes, I gather you are heading towards the center.

You need some people who've done things before.

But do you need people who've done things before very badly?

this is the greatest mystery about Mandel,

isn't it?

'cause

always had and maintained this reputation as being this great PR spinner

and this

fantastic

who can, work

behind the scenes and achieve amazing things.

What all he's ever done is make

dislike him quite intensely and turn himself into a symbol of

corrupt politics repeatedly.

I think there is something quite attractive, and as a political journalist,

you have to be honest about it, about a people who are really great sources and

they've got a lot of really good gossip.

But also people who absolutely love politics and love the game of politics.

One of the problems, I, was at the New Statesman during the Ed Miller

Band Reign and he ply disdained and politics was, it was beneath him.

Why is everybody just plotting always and briefing and, oh, it's te so terrible.

and I think Stama has that view too.

So therefore it is.

As a journalist, more refreshing to spend time with people who

absolutely love, like the George Osborne, your Ed Balls, people who

just

gove

Michael Gove is a very good example.

So I think from the point of view of journalists who work in those circles,

not only those people, very good sources of information, but like you, they, enjoy

the personal drama versus your kind of Gordon Brown, your kiers, who are, try

and see themselves as a, as aloof from it.

I

the problem with that probably is that 99.9999% of people in the country

aren't political journalists and are

actively repulsed a bit like Ed Miller

and I think Kiama buy

by that sort of

politics.

doesn't really

help.

there has been a slight change of line, I'd say from Mandelson

as this story has evolved.

and

We should remember he was sacked

September after a previous batch of emails was released.

he's issued an apology and I'm quoting here to

the women and girls

suffered.

His

previous

line when he was asked about this by the Financial Times was, it's

an FT obsession and frankly, you

can

all fuck off.

that,

is a change of

isn't it?

It's a change of line.

light.

Pr,

what more

Pr,

PR genius

really got a

spin.

But

But

I suppose the question is, and I know the week

is gonna play

out with whether these files are gonna be released, showing what was

known, when was being vetted for the job, how the decision was made.

The Peter files, if

you like.

sorry,

but,

but his line,

and I think this is very important,

is that

everybody else had said, how could I possibly know this?

I didn't know Peter that well.

This line was repeated by Peter Mandelson.

How could he have known about Jeffrey Epstein He had no

idea who he was.

And at that point, even the dimmest of political journalists thinks I better jump

ship.

there was a very

funny piece about the Times, his attitude, the Times, were a

very pompous leader saying, Who

on Earth thought that Mandel should be trusted and why?

And then someone pointed out, you put him on your

election podcast

and you've invited him in to talk to your journalists.

The very brilliant Simon child writing it.

It is a bit of a point.

You can't thunder when you've had

this person

on Times radio on your

podcast.

Yeah.

Why did

you put him on?

And

if you say, I

him on, 'cause he's really interesting.

He's got good gossip.

You say that's their

line.

What's your

line?

But the line is,

it is

all the way

to Epstein

is,

I was lied to

about this.

So

Mandelson says he was completely

deceived

by Epstein

when he

was visiting

the island

the He never saw any, young

girls

there

or anything like

this,

except

there

were two Swedish women there.

In one

email.

So either he's Blind or

being homosexual, deprived you of

sight,

which

is a

new

he still, that was

the line, wasn't he?

He knew

about it because he's gay.

So he wasn't involved in

sort was, and

then

the, email comes out of him

about, oh, hey,

you're outta prison now.

we're celebrating with

some strippers called, Liberty

and

modesty Modesty

and,

yeah,

yeah.

But Also in the birthday book, which came out last year, there's a line,

a, there's pictures of him with women over age as far as we can tell.

But there's a line about how this, there was a man called Jeffrey who would

turn up with some interesting friends.

So there's, I, they, and, the Epstein files are full of references like that

to his reem, to you and your girls,

this is the thing.

Mandelson's

line is I couldn't possibly known and you

can judge for yourself whether,

how

li how

likely that is.

But

the

line of

the line of Labour team

Mandelson lied to us when

we were vetting him,

you he

said

that the

relationship

over.

But

this

isn't how vetting works.

you

don't say,

you

in any

way dodgy?

They reply, no, of course

I'm not.

And

then you say, thank

you very much

indeed.

That's

very kind

you,

you

you

have to ask other people

as well

or

just

read some papers.

or

can I just point

out or Indeed

command.

very clear.

On

note,

what might have been wise

for everyone

involved

be to, read private eye.

I, it's good advice for anyone at any time, but this is slicker

writing on the 30th of March, 2009.

So this is

very,

shortly

after

Manton is brought

back into the government by Gordon Brown Okay.

serve as, trading industry secretary, but

effectively

number two

in the government.

He was very much above darling A Chancellor in the packing order.

Slicker writes In uncertain

government

ministers need all the expert help they

can get,

which may explain the surely fanciful suggestion that business secretary

Lord Mandelson

has been discussing

with American Money

Manager Jeffrey Epstein, the new Obama administration

and new powers on

Wall Street.

Last July, Epstein

began serving an

18 month prison sentence in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting sex from

underage girls

young as 14

multimillionaire Epstein, also a friend of Prince Andrew and

ex-President Clinton has been on day release from

the Palm Beach County

jail since October.

And so

available to meet and speak by telephone

to friends.

But it is surely

too absurd to

that

British government minister would

be talking to a jailbird.

So these suggestions

cannot

true.

30 of the March, 2009.

Wow.

Was

that

a case of

sort of lawyer

induced

sarcasm?

That's how I think of the tone of that.

that can't possibly be happening.

because Very

possibly.

he followed up, slicker, followed

up

again

a couple of years later.

is

which

is

when the, the

story starts

to get slightly

circulation.

he points out

that, it suggested Mandelson contacted Epstein while

he was on day release

from a

prison to see whether he could help smooth the way for the then

business secretary

to contact

leading Wall Street banker Jamie Deon,

chief executive of JP Morgan

Chase,

to discuss

important financial matters, which is exactly the stuff

was coming

out in the emails last week,

about,

Mandelson

suggesting to Epstein that,

JP

should

mildly threaten Alistair Darling,

that then

chancellor over

the proposed

banker's bonuses,

ban,

right?

So

it's

all there.

It's all

there.

It's

all

in the eye.

as, Helen says, it may

not be the biggest

ever, but suggesting government policy should be shared and influenced by Major

Peter files.

It's, it's probably

a bit new, isn't

it?

I

think

in terms

how high it goes as

well.

we were saying literally he

was pretty much second in command in the government.

the profumo affair, which

this has being compared to,

there wasn't even

any accusation.

I

don't think the Profumo

had leaked anything,

via,

his

various

It was just

fact that he was,

sleeping with

Christine Kiler

at the same time that she

was sleeping

with with a Russian spy.

in

terms of actual leak

it tended to be very

low down people.

Usually

the Ministry of Defense

was the kinda the weakest

place, but it was low down.

civil servant.

was actually the second

powerful

man in the country.

It was quite prepared

to discuss

market sensitive information,

confidential documents and

share

them with,

but share them, particularly with an American pedophile

does seem quite

major.

And,

the

line that Andy's

is that everyone lied to everyone.

Peter

Balson

voluntarily handed over

the information straight away.

And then lied to the Prime Minister.

so it's

not

just

passive.

I suppose the thing

I'm

interested in at what point

does believing

you

are being lied to by someone is a

proven

liar,

become culpable.

it

seems

possible.

This is the

Cretin

paradox,

right?

It's

the Cretin paradox.

It

seems,

plausible

that the

only world

leader

to be brought

down

by Epstein files is Kia Starer.

someone

who,

as

far as I can tell, would

absolutely

never have consorted with anyone Epstein, someone

who seems,

pretty, square

and

prosecuted.

Quite

a lot

of

people

guess, prosecuted people like this, rights lawyer,

this is extraordinary, isn't it?

I know.

Donald is named thousands of time in

the

files,

and

apparently this just

cuts

no ice at all in the

USA.

I

I think you have to look at it in the context of the fact that quite

a lot of the parliamentary Labour party think that Stan is a lemon.

the scandal is one thing in itself, but a bit like, who really outside

of nerds like us remembers the Chris pincher scandal, right?

In terms of doing for Boris Johnson.

But it was finding the accumulation of a lot of people thinking,

we are better off without you

than

with you.

Right.

And so I think that's, you have to see it as part of that.

I know what you mean.

It does seem odd that so few consequences have been suffered by anybody in America.

A few people have lost a, some TV gigs and some, administrative

stuff in US universities So there has been some collateral damage.

But in terms of the political scandal, the fact that Donald

Trump fell out with Jeffrey Epstein in the two thousands before all

these emails

occur, and the fact, I suspect that this was man used to fax mean

things to his email, his enemies really quite late into the nineties.

I'm not sure he'd ever really got to grips with email.

Just means that actually Trump has escaped this, But there's also the fact that he's

elected president for a four year term, there's really no way to get rid of him.

So

just not that live question in the way.

And I felt like about a week ago, there was just this kind of Cent of blood in

the air, essentially from the lobby.

And, that they just thought, hang on a minute.

We like, we've

got him.

and at that point it becomes, it always becomes very unpleasant actually.

George Osborne and Ed balls were talking about this in their podcast,

and George Osborne did this thing.

We said, I never like this bit when you see this sort of hunting pack mentality.

And I thought, I bet you Shad Having been on the end of it a couple of times.

But then both of them ends up saying, I was shocked by the bit where you

would be in government and you would just press forward on your email

from the treasury onto someone else.

I think that's the bit that even people who thought they, and in the case of

George Osborn knew Mandelson quite

well,

actually ed Balls and a sort of frenemy kind of way.

But that, that, I think people were genuinely shocked by that even, and

I don't think that was fake shock.

I think that was real

shock

actually.

that It was

worse

even

than

they thought.

Are

Are you saying

we're not remotely

that he consort with a pedophile after conviction,

but

this

email forwarding

think is

outrageous.

Yes.

Yes.

genuinely yes.

On the basis that Lord Manon has always delighted in this reputation of the Prince

of Darkness and whatever it might be.

I, And, his lobbying firm had a group of people whose Wikipedia pages have got

very long controversies sections, right?

this is this has always been his shtick, but I think the

word that ki used was betrayal.

And I think there are lots of people within the political class who do feel

like that, that this is a betrayal.

This is so outrageous that you just wouldn't have comprehended,

that anybody would not know.

that this was just, You should never

do

this.

equally in terms

Trump patenting on it,

you talk about

lobbying firm, his global

absolutely secretive

about what clients

was representing there.

still, right

until last week, serving as

a member of the

of Lords, a

member

of Parliament,

he?

And,

he claimed that, the rules, did not apply to

him

as a peer,

that he did not have to disclose who these clients were, that,

his lobbying firm lobbied for.

And

as you

would

expect,

everyone

a wronging

the list is unbelievable.

Even

list of,

Saron technology

is limited.

Emperor pal

appetite.

Yeah.

LLC.

Yeah,

absolutely.

Nuclear,

south African tobacco,

uh,

you name it, they're all in there.

and it was, again, this is this old

hiding in

plain sight business.

I dunno how many pieces Richard Brooks wrote for us about, Mandy's lobbying firm.

but

it was,

this.

area between business and politics.

that's described on their mission statement.

You

think.

You think

that's the

area we don't

want.

We

want politics and

we want

and we do

not.

want

you.

it was helping clients see opportunities

politics.

it's pretty blatant in terms of

one of those

opportunities in

of course, was

the hosted a dinner

for Palantir, Peter Fields, company, with a

load of NHS bosses

just

they picked up

an enormous,

NHS data

contract in

2023. That was one

of

stories.

Yes.

there's

an awful lot more

of these as

well,

and the

idea that this was a good person to have

in charge of your, American

Embassy,

and I, again, I do not buy this argument that they all say,

it was,

High risk, low something, appointment.

It was a very high risk, no possible

benefit appointment.

the diplomatic service is

not

short of

people

who can go in and suck up

to foreigners.

That is part of

the job.

this isn't a new observation

and

you

don't

have

to

have

balson to do it.

So

you

don't buy,

you

don't

buy the, we

needed a

creature to be in the swamp

line.

Previous ambassador did a perfectly good job, right.

Why appoint a political

appointee.

There was a, I think that was one of the many things that has pissed

off the PLP because that Karen Pearce was welllike respected,

seemed to be getting on the job.

There was no, there was no black marks against her record.

And they parachuted in Peter Mandelson, essentially because he

was a mate of Morgan McSweeney's.

And I think that's maybe part of the, rage that Kirsten's feeling is,

I think he feels he was duped into this, but he's the one with his name.

I was gonna say

his

name above the door,

unless

his name's

10.

That's not true.

But like

Ultimately, he's the prime minister.

That's, who he's the ultimate decider.

and the other thing it really spoke to was a sense that I've been

hearing for coming up two years now, about the sense of a kind of

little boys club clique in number 10.

And, there's lots of women working number 10 star's, two new chiefs of staff.

one's acting both

women,

for example.

But there was a feeling that there was a kind of little, group of

people who just got this sort of stitched up in amongst themselves.

and I think that's the Karen Pierce thing spoke to that

is that

particularly the women's PRP were like, hang a minute, you've got rid

of this very well qualified woman in order to put in a very dodgy

man.

What that

There

was

a

kind

of,

what's

that

all,

what's that

all about actually?

Because

are

are no

terms.

It

wasn't

as

she was coming up to the end of

a set

term as

the

You just get appointed.

And

then,

yeah, I

it was.

a,

You are right.

The way that people defended it at the time was essentially like, MAGA

is horrifically

corrupt.

Why don't we send

over someone who won't make them

feel ill at ease?

But

isn't the, lesson of the past six months that sending people who

are

a bit straight,

into battle against

Trump, like Mark Carney

works,

and

the

people who stand up

him get results.

The people who don't our brilliant China deal.

not only have we got nothing at all, but Jimmy

Li goes to

for 20 years.

Oh,

that was good.

That's diplomacy working well,

the whole

of putting mandelson in is

nonsense.

private eye does, we should say feature

the Epstein files, doesn't

it?

Yes.

Yes.

And

it's

not me on

plane.

it's, a story found by, Robbie Griffith and Adam, about, a

lawyer.

Tell

about him.

Paul

Tweed?

Yes.

Yeah.

Who's been written back

quite a lot

in

the, are.

He's a, Very keen on his job, defamation lawyer,

should

say.

Let's describe him that way.

and he

was,

retained by

Epstein

for a while, although

been very

clear, like

many people

just say, say this week,

that,

actually you didn't,

knew nothing about him and

actually, didn't

stay with him for very long.

He wouldn't take

his

advice.

so

they,

stopped representing him in,

in, in, in 2011,

after

come

prison for the first time.

But,

yes, he

took great

with,

the

private eye cover

that we were discussing, the, Beatrice Eugenie.

it was about the

time, the story, first story, first of

many, stories

came out about Fergie taking

money from, Jeffrey Epstein, who

she seems

to have treated as a sort of cash

really, doesn't she?

Whenever she was in trouble, which of quite often, just said.

Any suggestions

and he would wire

money.

but,

Paul Tweed took great offense at this cover and, suggested to,

Epstein

that,

it was a

great a front and that legal

should be taken, not

in fact

against us, but against

Sarai Ferguson at

time,

who

he thought was

damaging, Jeffrey Epstein's reputation.

and

then the second

mention

was, it

was

Peter Mandelson,

who,

was

sending an

to Jeffrey Epstein saying, I

think you are going

need,

a

good

libel lawyer.

again in

reference to

the private

eye

cover and

the story that

Fergie had herself released.

So

there is

a

sense in which

revenge

is,

being served as a

very cold dish

around here.

But,

that's why we

put in the

joke.

' cause you said, you suggested to Epstein

he

needed a

lawyer.

We

reckon you are

gonna

need a good

lawyer.

right.

We're

be

staying with

this

because it seems.

To

be quite a big one.

good

Andy.

you.

you.

That's

Say that

again.

Yeah,

Promote that

boy.

right.

All right.

We're

gonna be staying this story.

Before

do that,

there

one other

news story that I

think we

cover,

which

is

that this podcast

proudly

lost

in its category at last week's political awards.

I

didn't

you

three at the

event.

you

were

all busy I

got to go

and hang out with George Osborne, ed Balls

and others who

won

big,

I was just gonna say all the people who knew Manon very well won awards.

or have you got

have stayed on a yacht with

him?

What's,

the exact

criteria?

there?

Have just wanna thank the judges of that, the whole competition

who did a brilliant job.

they

were,

Alexander,

Liam

Conlin, mp Greg appointed mp, Steve Race, MP Tom Rutland, mp.

Bar

Ann Jenkin, de

Mattson,

Harry Quilter,

Qui pinner,

and someone called Lord Ben Houchin,

Who

I

don't

think we realized

was

on

the

panel.

And

we

might

have saved ourselves

the

email.

How

on

earth

did

not

win,

Matt,

Matt, the producer and I

just

looked

at each other and thought,

wow, have a

nice

meal.

And we

did.

He's

got no style though, because the cool thing to do in that situation would be

to give the award your enemy and a sort

of

ha i, have.

'cause in he's he's

won, hasn't

he?

In

sense

of in we're talking

about

scandals

that

we

private eye point

out a lot and no one does anything about,

he could

be like, haha, maybe you can

frame

this

next

to your

many,

like,

reams

of

coverage

about

my

dealings.

good

point.

that, that's

an

idea

for

you next

year,

Ben.

so anyway,

We should come back to

the, big winners of the night, George Osborne and his close

personal Trump, Peter Mandelson

and the

fallout

that story.

Are there, is there, are

there any stories

that you think

have

received the prominence they should have?

that

out in the last week, which

have

slightly

been

overwhelmed

by political

drama

and

stuff

from the

Epstein files?

Stuff

from the

files,

yeah.

Okay.

this,

I think is very

This is a statement from

the General Osteopathic Council,

seems to have otherwise

gone and reported.

It says, we are

aware of media

that the husband

of

Mandelson,

Ronaldo

rdo Avila de Silva, was in receipt of funds from Jeffrey Epstein to fund an

course in

the UK in 2009.

Ronaldo Avila DeSilva

did not graduate

osteopathy course and has

never been registered with

the General

Council.

Therefore,

he's not able

to

osteopathy in

accordance

with the law within the uk

if he's

poised

his hands

over your spine at this

moment.

Get off that table.

that

was one of the

bizarre details.

' cause when it, this was the point where Del was still

talking

to the press and he said, I was just under the impression that this 10,000

pounds

was

given to his then partner, now husband,

was a

a sort

of bursary and, that Jeffrey was

a very charitable

guy who handed out

these bursaries.

So

If you are hunting

out charitable

you probably

don't

them to people who have recently

stepped down

as an

extremely important cabinet minister and

have

quite a bit

of

cash already.

Do you?

No.

probably

some sort of means testing

that

goes on.

look,

just

loves

spinal

realignment.

A

A man has

gotta have a hobby.

hobby.

So we're having all this discussion about K Starer is, former

director of Public prosecutions.

There's

another

former

director for public prosecutions who I think has got some questions

to answer, which is Ken McDonald.

So there's a very upsetting case of a

a Norwegian

student

back.

In the two thousands was found raped and strangled, having left a club and got into

taxi with the son of a Yemeni billionaire.

So her name's Martin Vic Magnuson and his name's Farouk Abdulhak.

She was found two

days later,

in the basement of this, of his apartment block, by which time he

had got on a

to Cairo and then to Yemen in his father's private

jet.

The Met decided there wasn't enough

to charge.

Basically, I've been trying

to get him

to Britain ever since he confessed to the BB, C that he said it was

a sex game gone wrong, which is a defense that's often used in

situations like this.

But there are emails from the

billionaire father

to Jeffrey Epstein about a meeting that he had with Ken McDonald, which says,

Ken McDonald was paid 20,000 pounds for, consultancy about how they might

possibly facilitate the return of this kid to Britain and make this case.

It was just a sex game gone wrong.

Can I

I

check

this

meeting proposed

was after McDonald's

time

director

of

public prosecutions.

Yeah,

yeah.

He's working for matrix chambers

at this point, so you can find it if you search for matrix chambers in the

files, but it was arranged, essentially, he said, as a lawyer, you end up meeting

lots of people with, with checkered

cvs.

But

nonetheless, I found this, there's a reference to the fact that,

Ken McDonald was helpful advising him because he'd be dealing with

the

D-P-P-I-E.

They'd be, he'd be brokering the terms under which this kid would come back

to Britain

and and face

the music.

And

just the thing that got to me about all of this really

horrible story

about a poor dead woman.

who, you, know whatever happened, she's not, she's never coming back.

There's a whole life that would've been lived there.

And at

the end of one

the emails about this back and forth between the Yemeni Billionaire and

Epstein, it ends after this discussion of what, what's gonna happen with how

was the

Caribbean?

And it's like they're having this chit chat about how, like, how's life on

your yacht in between the discussion about the death of this young woman.

And that to me just really, I think a lot about that line that f Scott

Fitzgerald line at the End of Great Gatsby back, they were careless people.

They broke people and things and retreated back into their vast carelessness.

And that

to me is an

of it.

You're discussing somebody, your, son killed, whether he did that culpably

or as an accident.

And you are also just

catching up with, how's the holiday going on?

Was the weather nice?

Did you get any good snorkeling in it?

Just, it seemed unbelievably callous to me.

and as I say, Ken, McDonald's made a statement about it,

but,

I just, I don't think that reflects

very

well

on

them, frankly.

And this

is just

one

of

things

that you've noticed.

The

amount

of stories in the files

that

are

buried

underneath

it.

cause we

just

doing the politics and

who's up

and

who's

down at the moment, it

is incredible,

how

much

there

probably

is

yet to go

in

these

millions

of files.

The thing that's interesting about these files, whether or not you're

looking at criminal wrongdoing in all these cases, and obviously

you're not in all of them, you

are looking

the, he is a really grim insight into the way that this bit of

the

world works,

essentially.

Yes.

it's

a

claim

that was made a lot

by the MAGA

movement

was that

society

was

being

run by

elite

pedophiles.

It

now

look quite so

absurd,

unfortunately.

they thought it was happening from a pizza parlor

in

Washington.

That's

where

they went

wrong.

but

apart from that, they

were on the money.

Yeah.

can

also say you just find

things that would've been really helpful.

To

know a long time ago.

in a

exchange of emails, we find out that Ghislaine Maxwell, derived

her enormous wealth This from some secret trust funds left to

her by her father.

Oh, good.

So

the public

in Britain, given because he'd stolen all the money from the pensioners,

our money given to bail them out,

could easily

have been paid

by Zla Maxwell outta these secret

funds that weren't secret

to her

friends

in New York.

and, everybody is the poorer.

It was

it was a hundred million, I checked a hundred

million in compensation, was paid by

the government

for the 32,000

former

mirror staff

who had

pensions

stolen by her dad.

Whilst

obviously he was stashing

this money

away.

Her, her

total net worth in 2013

apparently estimated

by JP Morgan.

It's them again.

They're

always

in, the

one of the first, 10 million.

Yeah.

So

the

idea was, I

think up until

now, that the.

that, that that was the

attraction

of Epstein for

her, wasn't it?

That

he was

funding her all

the way.

But

turns

out

yes,

And

it

was this

poor, sad

family,

the

two brothers

whom obviously took me to court for contempt of

court during

the

process.

And

I

have no, beef about that.

But it, for

younger

listeners to the podcast, Maxwell

did Sue privat

eye.

Robert

Maxwell sued

us on

the ground

that

said

he

stealing from his own pension fund.

and

then

he died,

but

not before he'd stashed

enough

away

for

her

not to have

to

live

the

world's

most famous

Peter file.

it, it

is completely,

yes.

Just

as a

for

Peter

Ton, if you

listening,

that's how

you declare

interest.

Yeah, That's

you say what you, there is an online phrase that, punish the villains is

actually quite a good electoral mantra.

You

it's

quite a

powerful saying.

Let's just, should we punish

the villains?

It's

a

good idea.

it doesn't

seem

be,

Dominic Cummings's mantra was fund the NHS

hang

Pedos.

Which also actually probably in this case would, be go

extremely popular with people.

one of the things that's interesting about the opposition parties

though, is I think they're quite keen to have the focus day on

Mandelson,

because then it's just pure, purely

a

Labour scandal.

And

I'm not

sure it is

purely a Labour scandal.

So there's a, an appearance by the Reform Treasurer and Nick Kante if they're not

in the files.

Yes, there is.

again,

of these casual references that, turned up in the files.

And, Nick Kante says that he and his brother bought

this building.

oh, not

was a, any building,

we should say.

No, this is

one.

Hyde Park.

This

is

indeed

one Hyde Park.

But

that

was the subject of a,

an

appearance

in

court by Nick Kante,

in

which

he

said

he

didn't buy it

with

his brother.

His,

brother.

bought it.

and

was

wrong to say

he'd

bought it

' cause he

just provided

various

services,

which

is a bit,

of all court.

he

was the

interior

wasn't he?

Yeah.

it

he Was

that was

that and that, that had

implications for the tax that they paid or didn't pay.

It

did.

And

And

who's

know

is,

this

email

in the Epstein files right?

Or

is

what

he said in

court under oath?

don't

at

me.

I have no

eye

for

these things.

I

do

think

there's a bit of a

principle

in

political

life that

when

Nigel Farage is slightly quiet for

half

an hour,

you

should look

extremely carefully at what he's

being

quiet

because he has

been

a,

he has made a fair few

points about

this,

but he

has kept

a little bit

quiet because his

chief

money

man

is

now

involved

in

too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

very

relatively tangentially.

But I

think

the

other thing

for his

point

of

view is that

Donald Trump

doesn't

like

a

lot

of focus

on this,

and

he's very

keen

to

preserve

that

relationship too.

Why, would that

be?

be?

Who

could

say the

author of the quote in New York magazine?

Jeffrey likes a lot of women and he likes them

on the

side.

Another person

who simply

didn't

know

what

was,

didn't

on.

no

idea.

absolutely no idea.

no

idea.

at

all.

I

feel

than a lot of the correspondence who into the letters page

of the eye this week saying

that cover made me feel sick

my stomach.

You redacted the wrong bit

when you

when you covered

up

Ty's face.

Yes.

No.

And

a

of people said it put me off

my

Some

our, less,

um.

Busy

said it put me off

by lunch.

But,

I, think

we may be near an apology for that camera Under, So the

of

underpants,

general, that's the only people to pay consequences,

is gonna be you and

Starber isn't.

funny old

world,

isn't

it?

it?

so those are some of the

side

cases

that

received maybe the attention that they deserve.

Maybe we

should now come back to

the,

I'm

afraid

you said, it's

all about

who's up,

who's

down.

But

does

have big

political

Effects Yeah.

Effects story.

there's a huge hunt on it.

The moment for anyone

who thought appointing mandelson was

a

good idea.

' 'cause

they

mysteriously.

They've

all remembered

that

actually they thought this

was a

terrible

idea

all along.

it's the least

of which I thought was David Lamie, who some

David Lamie

was

always against this say

he sauce close to David Lammie

the weekend.

bit.

That sources

close

to David Lammie.

Got

that

out

there.

Yeah.

Took

the time.

but if

this

does, and

again,

we are

recording this before I probably

24 hours of

quite

on news before you hear it.

But if

does

lead to

the sense that kt,

his position is untenable,

then there are all

sorts of people

wondering

who might

be next.

But

there seem to be all sorts of

problems with everyone

as

well.

The problem is, so Angela Rainer, bastion of the soft left now in the

been on the back benches, which has given her a lot of time to network,

has still got the tax investigation.

her second home, declaration, hanging over her.

So, she, that's, that, that might put a pause on some people.

Some people

want

Ed

Milliam

back

and

that's

because

they

were

apparently asleep

during the period 2010, to

The

vote

loser is

what we

Now

He wa I will say he was right

on

Mandelson

when he

was asked about

in 2010.

He said, I think it's

important

to

preserve the

of

dignity in

And

I

think

that

was

okay.

That

was

a

banger,

of

the

few sensible

things

that

has

been, said about, I was

hoping

he said Dig in

retirement,

but

no.

that

been

an extreme.

No,

I

ed Milliman has had a Renaissance and Ed

Renaissance,

if you

will, in, in

that climate

change brief.

But I,

don't

think

there

were

that

many people

who

remember

his

time as

leader of

the

Labour

with

fond

affection.

I don't

think he does.

I don't

think

he,

does.

I

don't think he worked.

no, he hated it.

Yeah, he said everyone was just kept going on about how

he'd stabbed

his brother in the back.

And the problem

with

that was he

stabbed his

brother.

in

back

and

it was entirely fair

to

go on about

it.

And then,

we streeting who's

seen

as

the

kind

of

great

hope of the

Labour,

Whatever you

might call it

Um,

is friends, Has long time.

Been

friends

Peter's friends,

much, much more

with

Peter Mandelson than

Stanmore was ever

personally,

didn't they?

Yeah.

His partner, Joe Dcy, worked for Mandelson at one point.

There was a suggestion in the times that they were on Mandelson Stag do, which is

a concept I would like to investigate.

more At greater length because I wonder what that

involved now.

Sort of heady

mixture of strippers and leaking for briefings

just

in a limo on the bright

and

front,

stripped him

Ms. trousers,

him on the

on the

cover of

private Heart.

It can Happen

to anyone.

So there is, that's the kind of the holding pattern really

is that it's not perfect timing

for any of the

people to move.

Andy Burnham obviously denied his ability to run in the Gorton by election.

So has at the moment

no

route

to

be becoming

Labour leader

unless he

could get

kiss down to very

quickly

Eni

noble him

and

it from

the

Lords.

But that's probably

not

gonna

happen.

there will

be a

seat

going

will there.

That's true.

There's a

red

an,

there's Aman free.

free.

uh,

after

long, But the

the end of the vetting will now take much, much longer.

'cause they'll have to

take that much more seriously.

might be

difficult to turn around in time.

Can

come back to

my point with we street,

which I keep

banging

back 'cause everyone else

to figure, forget he's got a majority of

528

in

Elford.

I

there's

a really, strong

that

at the next general election he

will be out.

What happens

if you are the leader

and then the prime minister and then you lose your seat?

I know

never happens.

you can't be

be minister.

the last person

that got close to happening was, Joe Sw.

anyone

her lib

de leader in the 2017 was this.

Yeah.

she went out

in one

then back in again in the another.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So she was

out as leader, you you know

of that morning.

if your party has

got the majority,

would be

quite

at the for Labour but, um, and,

and,

your leader

their seat, then

you've got a

of a problem I

know I'm a

record on this, but I dunno, there really are that many safe seats anymore.

If you look at Joe Sw in being

a very

example, that SMP post Indie referendum, 2015 tidal wave

of yellow was extraordinary.

Ti used to be the safest seat, Goran old seat, safest seat.

Gordon Brown Old's seat safe seat.

And that went to SMP.

just these, the swings were vast and I think that

same thing

happen at the next election here.

I don't know

anyone whose seat looks,

nailed on.

said Farage.

I

the thing is it would be trending in his direction, right?

That's the thing.

Any, maybe I should modify that and say any Labour MP with

majority under 20,000 should

be

thinking

should put a bit of a shift in at the constituency surgery.

Yeah.

no holding candidate?

What there's in the sort of like the kind of, when they have a Pope and they

pick a really old one and then they just go, give us another six months.

We'll have a think about this.

You

can tell that things are

because there was a very brief moment of excitement where someone seems to

have briefed a lot of lobby reporters.

Maybe it'll be Al

Carnes.

Now,

And I know the first question

on your

lips,

Which who?

is Al Kanes?

I

I think of him very much as Labour's,

Mel Stride.

Brilliant.

He's not Labour's male.

Stride.

And

who's Mel

Stride?

Shell Chancellor.

Cute, Of course.

But,

he's

Spice

Yeah.

I fear that Al Kas might have had a similar, had one drink with a

journalist in which he went, if the ball came looser in the back

of

the scrum.

And this has become a very brief, Kanes mania.

But we'll see.

Maybe by the time we finish

recording

this

podcast,

he'll

be

our prime

minister.

The

joke

will be on me.

the thing I think will happen is that the party will snap back like

very much like Lord Mandelson's

nickel

to its, its default state, which is

soft left.

So that's where the,

that's

the, it is in comfort

zone stuff.

Yeah.

But that's where the, that's where the gravity of

the

is.

So Shaban Mahmud has put through immigration reforms that are probably

broadly popular with the country at large.

Very

unpopular with the

mps, very unpopular with

the membership.

The composition of the membership has changed since 2020.

'cause quite a lot of them have left to join the Greens for

a. start, But it's still in

where you'd

to be socially liberal, pro-European.

So with Street, for example, has been talking up his pro-European

credentials because he

knows, in other respects on

sort of cultural issues He's more in the Blair, the hated Blairite Zone.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

whereas Angela Rainer is, for example, has extremely strong links with

trade unions, which are traditionally a very good thing when one is

standing for the, Labour leadership.

But there's, there's sort of something for all of those involved, this

is not the ideal time for them to

move, essentially.

And

yeah,

think that even as late as last week, the suspicion had been

that something would happen after

the May local elections.

and that's why Anna

swa.

has put that distance, because he's

facing the

SNP,

uh,

in what is

to be a pretty brutal battle up in Scotland.

And he wants to put a bit of distance from himself in the way that Douglas

Ross distance himself from the unpopular Boris Johnson in England.

that's always been.

Ever since the Ros actually, to go back to the Miller Band era about whether

or not the, mp, the Scottish Labour leader the kind of leader of a branch

office or a fully fledged leader in

their own right.

It has been a

a really difficult

when the party in power, like the center, the Westminster

leader of Labour is unpopular.

What do you do as the regional leaders?

And the Welsh Labour will be having exactly that discussion too, because

again, they're expecting to lose their majority in the Senate for the first time.

ev they

won't be the biggest party in

in Wales

since, for the first time since

the

evolution.

So there's a big incentives for people

in the regions and Nations to

kind

in the same way that there is for Andy Burnham to say, actually, I'm

I'm getting off this

ship.

And I guess there's big incentives as well for people nationally who are possible

contenders for the Prime ministership to

not want to take

on when that's gonna be

your immediate thing is a very difficult

election up in Manchester

and then those local

results, it's kinda yeah, no

care.

have those and then that's a much better point at which to come

a

in a very

cynical

way,

Yeah.

And also the one thing that has plagued the star administration is the

perceived and indeed actual lack of

a

plan.

the

very panicky

winter fuel allowance.

Oh no, we're not pit reform.

Oh no, we're not,

no, we're not gonna raise taxes.

Okay.

We'll get through these sneaky ones instead.

That actually, which of the

other

candidates

has got a kind of, have

they already

in place a fully formed, do, what do they think the problems are with

Britain and how would they solve them and how would they get the rest

of the parliamentary Labour party

to vote for

solutions?

That's, Luke Trill does a lot from more in common.

He does a lot of focus group polling.

and He said the emotion he sees now is not

apathy, but

nihilism.

People just think everything is screwed and they

doning,

think anyone can fix it.

And I think that is also a bit of a, an inhibition on some of the candidates too.

And that's

your initial point is.

why this scandal may have

bigger

than it should have is 'cause people feel so badly about politicians

and

plays

the narrative.

look at that.

It couldn't get worse than that,

could it?

What we all believed, is true.

None of them are

good.

Yeah.

What does Britain's future look

like?

I'm off

to California

week and

say

what you like

about

It's good.

permanent.

Yeah,

but

Which

no, you're

it

too.

It's not always bloody raining.

And actually

people are excited about the future.

there's a sense that things are actually changing and the world is improving and

there's a, yes, they're all mad peptides and, worrying about the antichrist,

but the least like that's a, that's.

Quite a classy problem to have the antichrist.

Our problem is like chronic low productivity and a,

welfare dependency ratio.

That's, that's

really troublesome.

So

I think

that's, I

just

think there

a,

that

pervasive

sense

of doom.

we've

reached,

I

refuse

to share,

we've

reached

our

traditional cheerful

point

to

end on.

so

I

think we should

wrap

it

up there.

Yeah, sorry.

it's all right for me.

I'll be in

California.

that's

it

for this episode

of 94.

Thank you so much for listening.

We'll

be back

again

a

fortnight

with

another one.

in the meantime.

private eye is available on newsstands,

but

if

don't want people to

see

carrying around a picture of

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his

fronts, you can get a subscription which is delivered to you.

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until then, thanks again for listening

and

we'll see you next time.

And

as

always, to Matt Hill of Rethink Audio for producing.

Bye for

now.